address 


\s 


OF 

MONTGOMERY  BLAIR, 

I 

before  the 

MARYLAND  STATE  REPUBLICAN  CONVENTION, 


AT 


BALTIMORE,  APRIL  26,  1860. 


WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 
BUELL  &  BLANCHARD,  PRINTERS. 

1860. 


/ 


A* 


t 


Address  of  Mr.  Blair. 


*5  Ok 


03 


Gentlemen  of  the  Convention  : 

I  appreciate  highly  the  honor  you  have 
done  me  in  calling  me  to  preside  ove£ 
this  first  Republican  State  Convention 
which  has  assembled  in  Maryland. 

I  am  deeply  sensible  of  the  importance 
of  the  occasion,  and  of  the  great  respon¬ 
sibility  we  have  taken  upon  ourselves  in 
inaugurating  a  party  here  which  all  who 
have  faith  in  adherence  to  truth  and 
justice  and  constitutional  obligation,  as 
the  sure  means  of  triumph  in  our  polit¬ 
ical  contests,  cannot  fail  to  foresee,  will 
soon  sway  the  councils  of  this  Common¬ 
wealth  and  of  the  nation. 

It  is  a  great  and  holy  cause  the  Re¬ 
publicans  have  undertaken  to  sustain. 
The  sacred  interests  in  their  care  de¬ 
mand  of  them  everywhere  prudence, 
courage,  untiring  and  unselfish  effort, 
but  especially  in  this  and  other  South¬ 
ern  States,  where  our  objects  and  prin¬ 
ciples  are  so  grossly  misrepresented, 
and  are  so  imperfectly  understood  by  a 
large  portion  of  the  people,  should  we, 
whilst  constant  to  our  principles,  en¬ 
deavor  to  be  prudent  in  our  conduct. 

The  great  difficulty  with  men  of  spir¬ 
it,  in  our  position,  is  the  danger  of  being 
drawn  into  extravagance  by  the  extrav¬ 
agance  with  which  we  are  assailed  and 
opposed.  We  must  guard  against  this, 
and  disabuse  the  public  mind  of  its 
prejudice  against  the  movement  with 
which  we  are  identified,  by  defining  our 
position  in  a  manner  which  will  put  an 
end  to  controversy.  The  measures  of 


the  Republican  party  are  rapidly  accom¬ 
plishing  this.  Two  of  its  great  meas¬ 
ures  will  be  found  especially  effective 
for  this  purpose :  first,  the  homestead 
law,  to  prevent  the  Africanization  of  the 
Territories,  by  giving  them  as  home¬ 
steads  to  the  free  white  race ;  and  sec¬ 
ond ,  the  plan  of  procuring,  in  some 
neighboring  country,  a  region  where  the 
free  people  among  us  of  the  African  race 
may  also,  in  accordance  with  the  wise 
and  humane  counsels  of  Mr.  Jefferson, 
be  given  homesteads  and  a  country  of 
their  own.  These  are  measures  looking 
to  the  separation  of  the  free  people 
of  these  dissimilar  races,  for  the  good 
of  both,  and  they  meet  the  general 
approval  of  all  good  men ;  and  the 
advocacy  of  them  by  the  Republican 
party  will  silence  the  false  clamor 
against  us,  that  we  maintain  the  equal¬ 
ity  of  the  negro,  and  favor  amalga¬ 
mation — a  falsehood  which  has  proved 
the  most  effective  instrument  to  arouse 
popular  prejudice  against  us,  and  which 
was  plausible  till  the  Republican  party 
put  itself  on  the  Jeffersonian  plan  of 
separating  the  races  by  these  measures. 
But  whilst  these  measures  proclaim  that 
it  fosters  the  policy  of  the  fathers  of  the 
Republic,  in  making  the  temperate  re¬ 
gions  of  America  the  chosen  home  of  the 
white  man,  and  make  it  pre-eminently 
the  white  man’s  'party ,  it  must  not  be 
allowed  to  be  said  that  it  contemplates 
any  interference  wTith  the  relation  of 
master  and  slave. 


The  time  will  probably  come  when 
emancipation  may  be  effected  here  and 
elsewhere,  as  it  has  been  in  Pennsyl¬ 
vania  and  others  of  the  older  States. 
But  with  this  the  Republican  party  has 
nothing  to  do,  and  the  subject  is  in  fact 
as  much  beyond  the  constitutional  juris¬ 
diction  and  actual  power  of  the  Federal 
Government,  to  which  this  contest  re¬ 
lates,  as  it  is  beyond  the  power  and 
jurisdiction  of  the  British  Monarchy. 
Every  one  that  knows  anything  knows 
the  truth  of  this  assertion ;  and  yet,  it 
is  by  confounding  the  question  of  power 
over  what  are  called  the  Territories  of 
the  United  States — which,  by  the  very 
terms  used  in  speaking  of  them,  are  con¬ 
ceded  to  belong  to  the  United  States — 
with  the  question  of  power  over  the  ter¬ 
ritory  of  Maryland,  (and  which  the 
terms  used  equally  demonstrate  not  to 
belong  to  the  United  States,)  that  our 
adversaries  endeavor  to  present  us  in 
the  attitude  of  conspiring  with  external 
fanaticism  to  war  on  the  rights  of  prop¬ 
erty  held  by  our  fellow-citizens.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  the  contro¬ 
versy,  or  in  your  history  or  mine,  to 
justify  such  an  imputation.  We  simply 
hold  to  the  doctrines  our  Southern  fore¬ 
fathers  taught  us.  We  are,  as  the}' 
were,  identified  with  the  people  here  by 
interest,  by  social  relations,  and  by 
blood ;  and  in  my  own  case,  I  think  it 
not  inappropriate  to  say,  by  blood  run¬ 
ning  back  to  the  foundation  of  the  city 
and  State ;  for  my  maternal  ancestor, 
Richard  Gist,  as  you  may  see  in  the  an¬ 
nals  of  the  city,  was  the  engineer  and 
surveyor  who  laid  it  off. 

We  are  not  the  men,  therefore,  who 
are  likely  to  be  wanting  to  the  true  in¬ 
terests  or  just  rights  of  the  people  of 
Maryland. 

But  there  is  still  another  mode  of  de¬ 
fining  our  position,  which,  in  my  judg¬ 
ment,  we  should  aim  to  accomplish,  in 
order  effectually  to  dissipate  the  preju¬ 
dice  against  our  party  and  cause, 
which  exists  in  the  minds  of  a  large 
number  of  the  true  and  honest  men,  not 
only  in  this  and  other  slaveholding 
States,  but,  to  some  extent,  in  the 
Northern  States ;  that  is,  by  the  candi- 


|  date  to  be  chosen  at  Chicago.  If  we 
can  induce  our  friends  at  Chicago 
to  give  us  a  man  whose  career  has 
been  passed  among  Southern  people, 
and  has  been  such  as  to  assure  them 
that  a  Republican  President,  whilst  re¬ 
sisting  every  effort  to  Africanize  the 
Territories,  and  persistently  holding 
them  for  the  homesteads  of  free  white 
settlers  only,  will  yet  sternly  rebuke 
every  external  effort  to  interfere  with 
slavery  in  the  States,  the  selection  of 
such  a  candidate  will  define  our  position 
too  clearly  to  be  misunderstood  by  any 
intelligent  and  honest  man,  and  will  do 
more  for  that  object  throughout  the 
country  than  any  amount  of  speech¬ 
making.  And  I  think  we  have  a  man 
for  the  occasion,  whose  name  I  need  not 
mention,  although  he  has  not  made  him¬ 
self  prominent  in  politics  of  late  years. 
Had  he  done  so,  he  would  not  have  been 
the  man  for  the  occasion ;  for  it  might 
have  been  thought  that  he  had  sought 
to  make  himself  a  candidate,  and  this 
would  have  impaired  that  absolute 
confidence  in  his  fidelity  which  now 
exists  in  the  State  in  which  he  re¬ 
sides,  and  in  other  Southern  States  in 
which  he  is  known,  and  which  is  required 
to  give  the  Republican  party  an  organi¬ 
zation  coextensive  with  the  nationality 
of  its  principles.  His  retirement  hav¬ 
ing  been  voluntary — for  he  would  have 
been  both  a  Senator  and  a  Cabinet  min¬ 
ister  since  1850,  if  he  would  have  con¬ 
sented  to  accept  those  stations — he  has 
proved  himself  exempt  from  the  lust  of 
office,  that  prevalent  vice  which  so  much 
impairs  the  confidence  of  the  people  in  the 
integrity  of  public  men.  It  is  true  that 
there  is  no  difference  in  the  principles 
upon  which  he  and  the  Northern  men 
who  will  be  urged  as  candidates  at 
Chicago  would  administer  the  Govern¬ 
ment  ;  yet  it  is  nevertheless  natural  that 
his  own  people,  and  those  in  the  contig¬ 
uous  free  States  who  sympathise  with 
them  more  or  less  in  their  apprehensions, 
should  feel  more  assured  of  the  safety 
of  their  rights,  which  are  supposed  to 
be  deeply  involved  in  this  contest,  when 
committed  to  a  Southern  man,  and  espe¬ 
cially  when  in  the  hands  of  one  whose 


integrity  and  strength  of  character  is 
universally  acknowledged. 

With  respect  to  the  State  policy  of 
the  Republican  party  of  Maryland,  its 
first  mission  should  be  to  aid  in  ridding 
the  State  of  the  rotten-borough  system, 
by  which  it  is  made  a  minority  Govern¬ 
ment,  and  institute  popular  sovereignty 


eight  populous  counties  of  the  north 
and  west,  which  contained,  in  1850, 
a  white  population  of  172,616,  which 
has  since  greatly  increased,  have  only 
eight  Senators  —  five  less  than  the 
thirteen  southern  counties,  which  con¬ 
tained  in  1850  but  104,661  white  peo¬ 
ple,  a  number  -which  has  probably  not 


here .  I  need  not  remind  you  of  the  fact ,  been  since  increased ;  and  in  the  House 
that  the  Government  of  this  State  is  not  of  Delegates,  these  eight  populous  coun¬ 
now  a  popular  Government,  in  the  proper  ties  have  only  the  same  number  of  rep- 


sense  of  the  term.  The  people  of  this 
city  have  recently  had  a  sufficiently  con¬ 
vincing  reminder  of  this  fact.  It  may 
be  instructive,  however,  to  analyze 
briefly,  at  this  time,  the  organization 
under  which  we  live.  To  illustrate  its 
nature,  it  may  be  remarked  that  the 
county  of  Calvert,  with  a  white  popula¬ 
tion  of  only  3,630  souls  in  1850,  and 
which  has  probably  not  been  increased 
since,  has  equal  power  in  the  State  Sen¬ 
ate  with  this  great  city,  which  had  a 
white  population  in  1850  of  140,666, 


resentatives  (thirty-two)  as  the  thirteen 
southern  counties.  The  southern  coun¬ 
ties  owned  58,000  slaves,  37,000  more 
than  were  owned  in  the  north  ;  and  hav¬ 
ing  the  power,  they  took  about  one-fourth 
more  of  the  Senate  than  they  gave  the 
populous  counties,  and  allowed  them¬ 
selves  the  same  representation  in  the 
House  of  Delegates  for  their  excess  of 
37,000,  which  they  allowed  for  the 
68,000  white  people  by  which  the 
north  exceeded  the  south  in  that  class 
of  population.  By  this  arrangement, 


and  contains  now  probably  -at  least  they  made  each  of  their  slaves  equiva- 
200,000  white  people.  One  white  man  lent  nearly  to  two  northern  white  men 


in  Calvert  has  therefore  more  power  in 
the  Senate  of  the  State  than  fifty  citi¬ 
zens  of  Baltimore. 

In  the  House  of  Delegates,  the  pre- 


Calvert  has  more  power  than  ten  citizens 
of  Baltimore.  Six  other  counties,  with 
an  average  -white  population  of  6,000, 
have  the  same  representation  as  Calvert, 
giving  each  of  their  citizens  a  greater 
power  than  thirty  Baltimoreans  in  the 
Senate,  and  six  in  the  House  of  Dele¬ 
gates.  The  other  six  governing  coun¬ 
ties  have  a  white  population  averaging 
a  little  over  10,000.  So  that  each  of 
their  citizens  have  a  power  in  the  Senate 
equal  to  twenty,  and  in  the  House  of 
Delegates  greater  than  six,  Baltimore¬ 
ans. 

I  have,  in  comparing  the  power  of  the 
southern  governing  counties  with  Balti¬ 
more  city,  taken  the  extreme  case ;  but 
I  may  add,  that  the  people  of  the  north¬ 
ern  and  western  counties  of  the  State 
are  also  disfranchised,  to  a  degree  un¬ 
known  elsewhere  in  this  country. 

Thus,  excluding  Baltimore  city,  the 


in  the  House  of  Delegates. 


*  NORTHERN  AND  WESTERN  COUNTIES. 


Sena- 

Rcprc- 

Free  White 

Slaves. 

tors. 

sentutives. 

population. 

Alleghany  -  -  1 

4 

21,633 

724 

Baltimore  city  1 

10 

140,666  \ 

6,718 

Balt,  county  -  1 

6 

34,187  j 

Carroll  -  -  -  1 

3 

18,667 

875 

Cecil  -  -  -  -  1 

3 

15,472 

844 

Frederick  -  -  1 

6 

33,314 

3,913 

Harford  -  -  -  1 

3 

14,413 

2,166 

Howard  *  -  -  1 

2 

8,000 

4,000 

Washington  -  1 

5 

26,930 

2,090 

Total  -  -  -  9 

42 

313,282 

21,330 

SOUTHERN  COUNTIES. 

Anne  Arundel  1 

3 

8,542 

7,249 

Calvert  -  -  -  1 

2 

3,630 

4,486 

Caroline  -  -  -  1 

2 

6,096 

808 

Charles  -  -  -  1 

2 

5,665 

9,584 

Dorchester  -  1 

3 

10,747 

4,282 

Kent  -  -  -  -  1 

2 

5,616 

2,627 

Montgomery  -  1 

2 

9,435 

5,114 

Prince  George  1 

3 

8,901 

11,510 

Queen  Anne’s  1 

2 

6,936 

4,270 

St.  Mary’s  -  -  1 

2 

6,223 

5,842 

Somerset  -  -  1 

4 

13  385 

5,588 

Talbot  -  -  -  1 

2 

7,084 

4,134 

Worcester  —  1 

3 

12,401 

3,444 

Total  -  -  13 

32 

104,661 

58,940 

*New  county,  taken 
estimated. 

from  Anne 

Arundel.  Population 

6 


Having  reduced  the  Governor  to  a 
cipher,  giving  him  no  veto  or  Legisla¬ 
tive  power  or  appointments,  they  then, 
as  if  in  mockery  of  popular  sovereignty, 
gave  the  election  of  Governor  to  the 
people,  presenting  them,  as  it  were, 
with  a  tin  sword! 

This  discrimination  against  white  pop¬ 
ulation  was  sufficiently  unjust  at  the 
time,  hut  it  has  been  since  greatly  ag¬ 
gravated  by  the  growth  of  that  popula¬ 
tion. 

The  ostensible  ground  upon  which 
this  gross  disfranchisement  of  the  white 
people  of  the  State  was  imposed  was, 
that  it  was  deemed  necessary  to  protect 
slave  property.  It  was  urged  in  vain, 
in  the  debates  in  the  Constitutional  Con¬ 
vention  of  1851,  that  the  purpose  did  not 
justify  the  usurpation,  and  that  it  was 
not  necessary  for  the  purpose,  for  there 
was  no  instance  in  history  where  the 
people,  having  the  power  of  govern¬ 
ment,  had  abused  it  to  sacrifice  indi¬ 
vidual  rights. 

o 

All  remonstrance  and  argument  was 
unheeded,  and  secession  from  the  State 
was  formally  threatened  by  the  minority, 
if  they  were  not  allowed  to  maintain 
their  power  over  it,  just  as  we  have 
seen  the  General  Government  menaced 
with  disruption,  if  the  same  interest  was 
not  permitted  to  hold  possession  of  it. 

As  it  is  not  the  purpose  of  the  Re¬ 
publican  party  to  use  the  General  Gov¬ 
ernment  for  the  purpose  of  despoiling 
slaveholders  of  their  property,  so  it  is 
not  our  purpose,  as  Maryland  Republi¬ 
cans,  to  use  the  power  of  the  State  for 
any  such  purpose.  We  hold  that  sla¬ 
very  is  an  evil,  and  that  the  time  will 
come  when  emancipation  will  gradually 
take  place.  But  this  can  honestly  be 
done  only  by  the  consent  of  the  masters, 
or  by  making  them  just  compensation. 
But  this  is  not,  at  present,  the  ques- 
*  tion.  The  public  mind  in  Maryland  is 
not  now  ripe  for  emancipation,  and  no 
scheme  for  it  has  been  proposed  or  dis¬ 
cussed.  The  struggle  in  Maryland,  as 
in  the  United  States,  is  manifestly  not 
for  1\iq  preservation  of  this  property,  but 
for  political  supremacy ;  and  the  proper¬ 
ty  interest  in  negroes,  and  the  prejudices 


implanted  in  the  minds  of  others  by  the 
existence  of  slavery  in  their  midst,  are 
adroitly  used  by  a  political  party,  to  hold 
possession  of  the  Government. 

Whether  the  owners  of  this  species  of 
property — who,  for  the  most  part,  have 
little  share  in  the  political  power  ob¬ 
tained  by  the  party  which  officiously 
makes  itself  the  special  champion  of 
their  rights — will  continue  passively  to 
suffer  their  property  interests  to  be 
staked  in  the  contest,  and  antagonized 
against  popular  government,  remains  to 
be  seen.  They  incur  dangers  from  two 
different  quarters  by  this  course.  First , 
from  the  people,  who  will  in  that  case 
certainly  come  to  regard  slaveholding  as 
inconsistent  with  popular  government; 
and  second ,  from  their  special  champions, 
who  will  destroy  the  value  of  their  prop¬ 
erty  by  reopening  the  slave  trade.  They 
already  perceive  that,  in  order  to  give 
the  system  the  expansion  requisite  to 
make  it  a  permanent  basis  of  political 
power,  this  trade  must  be  reopened ; 
and,  accordingly,  it  has  been  already 
practically  legalized  by  the  decisions  of 
two  of  their  courts.*  Slaveholders  have 
therefore  no  ground  for  hostility  to  the 
Republican  party,  and  no  class  of  our 
citizens  are  in  fact  more  interested  in 
the  overthrow  of  the  filibustering  De¬ 
mocracy,  which  so  trifles  with  their 
rights  of  property. 

I  have  thus  endeavored  to  present, 
briefly  and  with  candor,  the  distinguish¬ 
ing  features  of  the  Republican  policy. 
In  my  judgment,  it  proposes  no  war 
upon  any  class  of  our  citizens,  or  upon 
any  section  of  our  country.  If  it  did, 
no  earthly  inducement  could  engage  me 
in  it.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  but  the  old, 
comprehensive,  and  beneficent  philoso¬ 
phy  of  the  fathers  of  our  institutions, 
under  which  we  acquired  our  greatness 
and  good  name  among  the  nations  of  the 

*  It  is  not  pretended,  indeed,  that  the  expan¬ 
sion  of  slavery,  for  which  this  contest  is  made,  is 
required  for  the  safety  or  value  of  the  'property 
interest  in  slaves.  Mr.  Hammond,  of  South  Car¬ 
olina,  recently  stated  in  the  Senate  that  the  do¬ 
main  within  the  United  States  now  subject  to 
slavery  wmuld  sustain  200,000,000  slaves.  No 
slave-owner  could  want  a  larger  field,  on  ac¬ 
count  of  his  property  in  slaves. 


/ 


7 


earth,  and  preserved  tranquillity  among 
our  sisterhood  of  States  for  more  than 
sixty  years.  Our  internal  troubles  and 
present  ill  repute  among  our  neighbors 
are  due  altogether  to  the  adoption, 
•within  the  last  twelve  years,  of  the  new 
and  dangerous  theories  propounded  by 
Mr.  Calhoun.  When  first  broached  in 
the  Senate,  they  were  denounced  as 
u  firebrands  ”  by  the  sagacious  Benton  ; 
and  his  denunciation  was  approved  by 
every  wise  and  conservative  member  of 
that  body,  and  almost  universally  by  the 
people. 

The  present  condition  of  the  country 

still  better  attests  the  iustice  with 

*> 

which  the  old  patriot  characterized  the 
mischievous  inventions  of  the  nullifier. 
Fortunately,  the  country  is  rapidly  re¬ 
turning  to  the  primitive  republican  faith, 
by  which  the  Government  has  been 
guided  smoothly  and  prosperously  under 
all  circumstances.  Let  all  who  would 
restore  harmony  embrace  it.  It  was  the 
creed  of  all  parties  within  twelve  years  ; 
and  the  years  of  trouble  which  have  fol¬ 
lowed  its  abandonment  by  our  rulers 
have  vindicated  its  truth  even  better  than 
the  previous  generations  of  prosperity 
under  it.  Even  our  adversaries  feel 
that  some  change  is  demanded  by  thq 
evils  of  the  times.  Will  a  man  of  sense 
and  a  patriot  suffer  himself  to  be  deterred 
from  uniting  with  us,  under  such  circum¬ 
stances,  to  bring  about  this  change,  by 
the  slang  phrases  with  which  we  are 
assailed  I  I  cannot  believe  it.  The  Re¬ 
publican  party  alone  gives  promise  of 
being  able  to  effect  this  change.  It  em¬ 
bodies  already  the  great  mass  of  the  op¬ 
position  to  the  acknowledged  misrule 
which  disturbs  and  endangers  the  Gov¬ 
ernment.  It  is  composed,  for  the  most 
part,  of  that  rural  population  to  which 
Mr.  Jefferson  looked  with  confidence  for 
the  safety  of  our  institutions,  being  the 
purest  and  most  unselfish  portion  of  the 
people.  It  is  always  safe  to  co-operate 
with  such  peeple.  I  believe,  therefore, 
that  we  may  confidently  expect  the  co¬ 
operation  of  the  people  of  Maryland  in 
restoring  the  ship  of  state  to  the  Repub¬ 
lican  tack,  if  a  proper  man  is  selected 
for  the  helm. 


The  sentiments  of  the  above  address  were 
well  received  by  the  Convention  and  by  a  large 
audience,  and  the  following  resolutions  cover¬ 
ing  the  grounds  taken  in  it,  which  Mr.  Wash¬ 
ington  Bonifant,  from  Montgomery,  and  for¬ 
merly  a  Representative  from  that  county  in  the 
General  Assembly,  intended  to  present,  would 
have  been  adopted,  but  that  the  deliber¬ 
ations  of  the  Convention  were  interrupted 
for  some  time  by  a  few  disorderly  persons. 
When  order  was  restored,  the  Convention  ad¬ 
journed,  to  enable  the  committee  appointed  to 
select  delegates  to  consult.  On  reassembling, 
little  save  the  formal  business  could  be  attended 
to,  as  the  delegates  from  the  country  were  anx¬ 
ious  to  take  the  evening  trains  for  their  homes. 

We  pledge  our  allegiance  to  the  principles 
inscribed  on  the  face  of  the  Constitution  by  the 
founders  of  the  Republic  in  relation  to  slavery, 
which  then  as  now  afflicts  the  country.  We 
cherish  in  our  hearts  the  compromises  they  then 
made  to  create  the  Union,  as  the  means  of  pre¬ 
serving  it,  and  leave  to  the  slaveholders  and 
slaveholding  States  all  the  legislation  necessary 
for  the  final  disposition  of  this  subject,  which 
was  surrendered  to  their  jurisdiction. 

2d.  We  oppose  amalgamation  of  the  white 
and  black  races  on  this  continent,  which  has 
been  suggested  as  a  natural  mode  of  gradual 
extinction  of  slavery,  by  blending  the  color  and 
the  capacities  of  the  two  races.  Hybrids  of  all 
sorts  are  failures,  and  a  hybrid  Government 
would  be  the  worst  of  all. 

3d.  We  are  opposed  to  free  negro  equality, 
as  having  a  tendency  towards  amalgamation. 

4th.  We  acquiesce  in  the  legislation  of  Mary¬ 
land  which  forbids  emancipation  without  the 
removal  of  the  freedmen,  holding  the  mingling 
of  the  free  of  the  colored  race  with  the  slaves 
as  threatening,  in  the  fullness  of  the  growth  of 
such  population,  fatal  consequences  to  the  white 
race. 

5th.  We  hold,  however,  that  the  owners  of 
slaves  have  the  right  to  rid  themselves  of  sla¬ 
very  whenever  they  feel  that  it  may  become 
oppressive  to  themselves,  as  well  as  to  the  slaves, 
and  their  neighbors  who  are  not  slave-owners, 
in  accordance  with  the  law  providing  for  that 
object,  or  laws  which  may  hereafter  be  made 
by  the  slaveholding  States. 

6th.  We  hold  that  this  manumission  brings 
with  it  the  duty  on  the  part  of  the  States  which 
expel  the  freedmen,  or  the  States  that  receive 
them,  or  on  the  United  States,  as  a  dernier 
resort ,  of  providing  homes  for  the  exiled  race, 
in  some  suitable  region,  under  the  protection 
and  patronage  of  the  country  in  which  they 
were  born,  for  their  own  and  its  benefit. 

7th.  We  are  in  favor  of  perfect  equality  of 
political  rights  among  the  white  race,  founded 
on  the  principle  of  free,  equal,  and  universal 


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suffmge,  and  abjure  that  system  of  legislation, 
in  any  of  the  States,  which,  by  basing  repre¬ 
sentation  upon  an  enumeration  of  the  negroes, 
destroys  the  equality  among  white  men  in  dif¬ 
ferent  sections  of  the  State,  in  proportion  as  the 
negro  population  preponderates  in  one  sec¬ 
tion. 

8th.  We  are  therefore  in  favor  of  a  revision 


of  the  Constitution  of  Maryland,  to  restore  their 
political  rights  to  the  great  majority  of  the 
white  citizens  of  the  State  who  have  been  dis¬ 
franchised  ;  a  small  minority  in  that  section  of 
the  State  where  the  negro  population  is  most 
numerous,  wielding  its  political  power,  in  con¬ 
travention  of  that  plain  republican  principle, 
that  a  majority  shall  govern. 


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